Man who stormed Capitol in caveman costume gets jail

A New York Metropolis judge’s son who stormed the U.S. Capitol wearing a furry “caveman” costume was sentenced on Friday to eight months in prison.

U.S. District Decide James Boasberg stated Aaron Mostofsky was “literally on the front traces” of the mob’s assault on Jan. 6, 2021.

“What you and others did on that day imposed an indelible stain on how our nation is perceived, both at house and abroad, and that may’t be undone,” the decide advised Mostofsky, 35.

Boasberg also sentenced Mostofsky to 1 12 months of supervised release and ordered him to perform 200 hours of community service and pay $2,000 in restitution.

Mostofsky had asked the choose for mercy, saying he was ashamed of his “contribution to the chaos of that day.”

“I really feel sorry for the officers that had to deal with that chaos,” mentioned Mostofsky, who must report back to prison in approximately one month.

Mostofsky was carrying a walking stick and dressed in a furry costume when he joined the mob that attacked the Capitol. He informed a friend that the costume expressed his perception that “even a caveman” would know that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Also on Friday, a federal judge agreed to postpone a trial in July for members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group charged with conspiring to forcefully halt the peaceable transfer of power after President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

A primary jury trial for five of 9 Oath Keepers members charged with seditious conspiracy, including group founder Stewart Rhodes, is now scheduled to begin on Sept. 26 and is expected to last a few month. A second trial for the other four defendants is scheduled to start out on Nov. 29.

U.S. District Decide Amit Mehta agreed to present defense legal professionals more time to arrange for trial but indicated that he isn’t inclined to grant one other delay. A number of protection attorneys expressed concern concerning the attainable influence if a congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot releases its report across the same time as the first trial. Mehta said that wouldn’t be a reason for one more delay, “even when 435 members of Congress begin studying from the report on the courthouse steps.”

More than 780 people have been charged with federal crimes associated to the Capitol riot. Over 280 of them have pleaded guilty, largely to misdemeanors.

A Tennessee man, Albuquerque Head, pleaded guilty on Friday to assaulting Metropolitan Police Division Officer Michael Fanone. Head pulled Fanone into a crowd of rioters who beat him, shocked him with a stun gun and stole his badge and police radio. An Iowa man, Kyle Young, pleaded guilty on Thursday to assaulting Fanone, who was severely injured by rioters and has since testified before Congress in regards to the assault.

Greater than 160 defendants have been sentenced, including over 60 who've been sentenced to phrases of imprisonment ranging from 14 days to 5 years and three months.

In Mostofsky’s case, federal sentencing guidelines beneficial a jail sentence ranging from 10 months to 16 months. Prosecutors really helpful a sentence of 15 months in prison adopted by three years of supervised release.

Mostofsky was one of the first rioters to enter the restricted space across the Capitol and among the many first to breach the constructing itself, via the Senate Wing doorways, in response to prosecutors. He pushed towards a police barrier that officers had been attempting to move and stole a Capitol Police bulletproof vest and riot defend, prosecutors said.

“Mostofsky cheered on other rioters as they clashed with police outdoors the Capitol constructing, even celebrating with a fist-bump to certainly one of his fellow rioters,” prosecutors wrote in a courtroom filing.

Contained in the building, Mostofsky adopted rioters who chased Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up a staircase towards the Senate chambers. He took the police vest and defend with him when he left the Capitol, about 20 minutes after entering.

Mostofsky regularly wears costumes at occasions, based on his attorneys.

“To place the matter with understatement, the New Yorker is quirky even by the standards of his residence metropolis,” they wrote.

A New York Put up reporter interviewed him inside the Capitol throughout the riot. He instructed the reporter that he stormed the Capitol as a result of “the election was stolen.”

Mostofsky has labored as an assistant architect in New York. His father, Steven Mostofsky, is a state court docket judge in Brooklyn.

“The fact that his father is a decide means that he ought to have been better able than other defendants to grasp why the claims of election fraud had been false,” mentioned Justice Division prosecutor Michael Romano.

Boasberg mentioned not one of the supportive letters submitted by Mostofsky’s family and associates clarify how he “went down this rabbit hole of election fantasy.”

“I hope at this point you understand that your indulgence in that fantasy has led to this tragic state of affairs,” the choose added.

Aaron Mostofsky pleaded responsible in February to a felony cost of civil dysfunction and misdemeanor charges of theft of government property and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds. Mostofsky was the first Capitol rioter to be sentenced for a civil dysfunction conviction.

Mostofsky’s lawyers asked for a sentence of dwelling confinement, probation and neighborhood service. Protection attorney Nicholas Smith described Mostofsky as a “spectator” who “drifted with the group” and didn’t go to the Capitol to intrude with the peaceable switch of power.

“He did issues he mustn't have finished,” Smith said. “However there’s a giant difference between an ideologue who's motivated to commit violence and someone who finally ends up doing dangerous issues after they find” themselves in a crowd.